What's so great about libraries?

[owlmoose]

The real question is, what's not so great about libraries? ;) This was forestofglory's post topic request, and I could probably fill up many screens with an answer, but I'd feel a little like I was preaching to the choir -- I can't imagine there are many people reading this who do not already love and appreciate libraries. So if you'll indulge me, I'd like to take a direction that's a little more personal.

I was a voracious reader as a kid, going back as far as I can remember. There was no way my parents were ever going to keep my book appetite fed, so naturally we were regular patrons of the public library. None of the small Iowa towns I lived in ever had libraries of their own, which meant regular pilgrimages -- every few weeks, or however long checkout periods were in those days. I graduated from picture books to chapter books around first grade, starting with the Oz books because I loved the movie. (I didn't know this at the time, but the librarian once asked my mom if I was actually reading the books or just looking at the pictures. Mom assured her that I was reading them -- every word, often several times over.) Library day was always my favorite, because library day meant more books: more stories to read, more imaginary worlds to visit, more lives to try out for a brief time, more old favorites to revisit (it was rare for me to get out of the library without at least one book I'd read before). So it's no wonder that libraries are my happy place, or that I gravitated toward them when it came time to pick a campus job as a college student.

So that's one thing I love about libraries: that's where the books are. Of course libraries are about much more than books -- I could go on in that vein, too -- but I have no problem with the brand of libraries being books. Because books are great, and despite what people keep saying, books aren't going anywhere. They may decline in importance for some purposes, and they may change format sometimes, but the basic idea of the book will continue to matter. As a librarian, and a library lover, I embrace the book, and the mission of matching readers with their book (see the Five Laws of Library Science). (If I had time to start over again, I might write a whole new post riffing on those five laws, and why they describe what makes libraries great, but it's getting to be bedtime. Maybe another time.)

I could list many other reasons, but that might be the most important, to me. How about you, my fellow library lovers? What is so great about libraries?

Comments

[zen_monk]

I remember my favorite things about libraries as a kid was the Accelerated Reading Program where if you read a lot of books and go up through number milestones, you say a summary about the book you read to a volunteer, and then get cool prizes like See's Candies gift certificates.

Read a lot of chapter books that way :P

[owlmoose]

Chocolate for reading books sounds like an excellent reward, especially since I would have been reading the books anyway. :) The one I remember is Book It!, which was a cross promotion with Pizza Hut. You got a gift certificate for free pizza every time you read a certain number of books (or maybe it was pages). I pretty much cleaned up on that one.

[wordweaverlynn]

It's where the books are, yes, but they *share* the books (and music, movies, etc.) in many convenient ways.

Twenty-five years ago I drove 200 miles to do some research at my college library. I stayed overnight in a hotel, and the whole thing cost me a fortune. These days I can borrow and download an ebook at 3AM any day of the year. Or request a book from other county libraries or an interlibrary loan from a consortium of academic and city libraries.

Also, my local library offers free admission tickets to various local museums, some of which are quite expensive. The librarians and patrons are almost all pleasant. We have a cafe, too, and a permanent used-book sale.

[owlmoose]

There are some really excellent and well-funded public libraries in your part of the world. One of the faculty at the school where I used to work was a Friend of the Livermore Public Library, and he was always feeding me great art books he found at their book sales.

I'm a big fan of cafes in libraries. It's great that the trend has caught on.

[fragilespark]

The books are an amazing part of it, but it's also things like finding The Sandman comics which led me to Tori Amos (back when you could borrow CDs from the library). As a teenager, it was a great place of my own to escape and to discover new ideas. The town had two libraries, and I would go to both. And of course, it was free... until the book sales :D I remember picking up a massive HTML tome with the CD for just £1.

My mum was a college librarian before she retired so a lot of my early internet/fandom memories are linked to going to visit her after school and sitting there finding FF7 fic and art (and printing it!) before we got a home PC.

And when I went to Uni it was heaven; I would take armfuls of books that weren't even related to my subject simply because they were there and interesting. I might initially do a search for something but once I'm there I'll browse the entire aisle.

[owlmoose]

And when I went to Uni it was heaven; I would take armfuls of books that weren't even related to my subject simply because they were there and interesting. I might initially do a search for something but once I'm there I'll browse the entire aisle.

I was always happy to do that, too. :) Especially since I worked in the library all but my freshman year, and so was always stumbling across interesting stuff. I still remember the first time I shelved on the literature floor and discovered that they had fiction beyond boring stuffy books by dead white dudes. (I usually worked in the classics, philosophy/religion, and history sections.) It was so dangerous to have it all right there, so close but with no time to read any of it.

libraries

[jenna_thorn]

Libraries are stable pockets in a chaotic world.

I don't mean that as metaphysically as it no doubt sounds. 8-) When I was a kid, elementary school years, my local library was Rosenberg library, which is a solid building, meant to withstand hurricanes (was built after the 1900 storm), and always smelled the same, that not!dust of books and binding glue, unique and common to libraries and bookshops. It's square and old and the carpet has worn spots (I've not been in years, but I suspect they are still there) and the children's section was downstairs, across an open space from the special collections area and so a reminder that this physical space was the same physical space that it had been through Carla in 1961 and would be (though Ike did a lot of damage to the building systems recently). It was solid; it was safe.

In junior high school, it was more emotional safety. Like so many kids, I was an overweight, acne-ridden, glasses-wearing, fashion awkward kid with orthodontia, 'nuff said. The librarian ruled with an iron fist, and looking back, I suspect she knew she was sanctuary. 8-) I spent most of my lunches in the library, avoiding my peers and rolling around in sci-fi and fantasy like a puppy in a pile of leaves. Given where and when I was, that meant mostly stuff like Barsoom and Gor, but also Norton's Witchworld. 8-)

Re: libraries

[owlmoose]

and always smelled the same, that not!dust of books and binding glue, unique and common to libraries and bookshops.

I love that smell, so much. It immediately takes me back to the basement of my college library, where I spent a couple of semesters pulling books for a cataloging project. Did you know, the smell *is* mainly dust? It's the scent of decomposing paper.

The librarian ruled with an iron fist, and looking back, I suspect she knew she was sanctuary. 8-)

I can pretty much guarantee that she did. :)

Lovely memories, thank you!

[lobeliar]

Well, when I was a kid with no computer (and thus, no internet access, aside from stolen moments during classes that took place in the computer lab at my middle school), being able to browse at my leisure at one of the library's many free use computers was really nice. And having a place to retreat to during the summer was very important, in retrospect, given how screwed up my family had gotten by that time (lots of arguments between my parents, and some more directly abusive behaviors as well).

But mostly: books.

I would crisscross the library for at least an hour, hitting the fiction section, and the historical non-fiction one, and then the fiction section again, and then the little offshoot wing where all the kids' books were, and then the fiction section again.

I would end up walking to the circulation desk with my fingers laced together around waist level, supporting an unsteady pile of books that literally stretched all the way up to my chin -- because I had to press my chin down on the top book to keep them from falling and scattering everywhere! And then the librarians would carefully stack the books into doubled plastic bags from every grocery and department store within city limits, and I'd lug them home. I had a section of my bookshelf specifically dedicated to what I had checked out from the library at the time, and said shelf was often full.

Also, apart from the ridiculous amount of fantasy and sci-fi reading I got in thanks to the library, it's also how I first encountered the Final Fantasy series, if indirectly. I happened to come across a very, very old player's guide for Final Fantasy VI (or, as the cover called it, Final Fantasy III) while browsing the second floor's sprawling nonfiction section. I hardly even remember what it was like, but for whatever reason, I found it charming, and when the clerk at EB Games mentioned that "Final Fantasy Tactics Advance" was coming out, much later, I ended up placing a preorder, and the rest is history.

[owlmoose]

What a neat happenstance. :) The serendipity of browsing is a wonderful thing, isn't it? I always tried to impress on my students the importance of just wandering the stacks, scanning the shelf instead of just looking up a book in the catalog and then beelining to it. That's the one thing I feel has been lost with the move to online bookstores and ebooks -- the opportunity to just happen across something amazing.

Thanks for sharing your story! :)

[forestofglory]

This lovely, are the many comments reminiscing about libraries. Thank you.

[owlmoose]

Isn't it? Thanks for asking the initial question!

[lassarina]

Books. Gathering places. Knowledge. Community. The public library where I live has video game nights, writing workshops, free classes of a variety of sorts (digital literacy, etc.) It's part of where we are.

[owlmoose]

For all that I focused on books in my answer, the community and other services that public libraries provide is so essential to a working society. I really don't understand why libraries are often the first target for cuts during times of economic trouble, when libraries should be considered a key part of helping people recover.

[lassarina]

Probably because the people yelling for the cuts, and the people holding the purse strings, don't use libraries as sources of community themselves, so it's easy to discard their meaning when you aren't actively involved.